Exactly. Which is why I stopped giving a flying fuck about sex workers defending sex work it’s like listening to oil companies telling you that yes, you need a car that consumes fossil fuel because this is how it goes. I’m OK with you selling it because in the case of oil there’s still tons of cars running on it or in the case of sex, I understand that it’s a way to independence for people but don’t ever try to sell me that it’s the norm, the future because it’s fucking not.

I agree with Coquette. She’s right. And that’s the problem because that double standard right here is for me why we can’t have nice things between men and women. I have nothing against double standard per se, but as a black man I’m constantly and forever on the bad side of it. This shit sucks hard. Why we shouldn’t have double standard? Because I’d like to think that we’re not at war, that we’re equal, the same damn meat bags and that we live together and respectively need those tits lips balls and dicks?

How can we have more equality and respect when a dude can buy a woman for the night, that just really doesn’t make any sense. Imagine a kid trying to make sense out of that. How society can shift its perspective on women if in any city you can get a sloppy blowjob for a a couple bills? Everything from slut shaming to cat calling to internet stalking derives from that, men believing that if some women can be bought –it doesn’t matter for what- they can do whatever they want to them because they feel like they are entitled to. Ladies, don’t you get it?

Even for the brightest men (well, maybe not so bright) that shit is confusing. Respect women, but buy one and do whatever you want wit her? It sounds like the perfect recipe to create psychopaths heavy breathing behind you in the street.

Fuck double standards and if you are a woman with some long term views, you shouldn’t support prostitution. Period.

You fight patriarchy while feeding it with slave-like behavior, how is that supposed to even work? It’s not and it can’t. I see things like “when you allow prostitution, rape rates go down!” God so much sleaziness in this argument, I can’t believe it’s being used. Dude, it’s like trading death for permanent injuries maybe it’s an upgrade but come on, we can do way better.

Dear men seeking that kind of service, what the fuck is wrong with you? I don’t get it except that it’s kind of a way to justify the ridiculous hours of work and absence in your life that you’re dealing with. A “fuck it” to the cubical or constantly-on-the-road loneliness. An immature wish that you can now fulfill, OK’d by society as long as you’re not getting caught.

Stop. This. Shit. Get an Autoblow or something. Go see a therapist or start writing a blog if you pay a hooker to hear your stupid lamentations. Dress better. Hit the fucking gym. Learn to listen. Be smart, fuck for free you idiots.

Dude re-calculate your existence, seriously. Not only you fuck up our global relationship with women in general but you’re making yourself swallow so much pride you’re pretty much choking on it until you’re old enough to not give a fuck about anything. That misogynistic selfishness is sometimes disrupted because you happen to have a little girl. Jesus fuck, if you need to have a kid to understand what women go through you are slow up there, like really slow. And you are the problem.

Let’s be equal, fuck for free and build shit/have fun together. How hard is that, really?

Best comment so far: “I’m excited and shitting my pants at the same time”.

- Thing to keep in mind: before we reach the ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) level that either kills us or makes us timeless, we have to go through AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) first. We’re super far from that. We’re still fucking around with basic AI and it’s already a nightmare of complexity.

- Moore’s law? Fine. But the limit isn’t so much technology, it’s economy: all that new technology coming is doable, only it takes decades to make those plants and master some processes. We’re slowing way down because shit is becoming extremely, extremely expensive not because we can’t make them at the speed of Moore’s law.

- There are tons of things we could already improve by ourselves without a need for AI. In the article there are mentions of how it could help us:

ASI could even solve our most complex macro issues—our debates over how economies should be run and how world trade is best facilitated, even our haziest grapplings in philosophy or ethics—would all be painfully obvious to ASI.

It’s already obvious for a lot of humans, usually atheists and with a way more chill sense of moral, nihilistic almost. We could solve all of that in a decade. We’re probably slower than any future machine but we could solve that; it’s not AI science.

It’s like the prospect of being immortal thanks to some friendly ASI. People freak out because of a set of beliefs they have been following all their lives but to me it just sounds doable and I’m not thinking much more. I don’t judge or overthink it. Because I already think humans as amazing biological machines, enhancing our meat envelopes so that we don’t age ever? Nothing crazy about that. We would definitely stop having kids by that time, probably. Or conquer other planets which I don’t care for, let me see how we’ll do so much better on Earth.

1/ You game journalists are so, so bad at connecting the dots. When you hear stories about crunch time for decades now, you should fucking investigate the why and how and see that behind that crunch is insane complexity. Developers haven’t been that shy about it. I remember hearing about how it took a couple months to create 3D models for Gran Turismo cars. Months for one car made by a highly skilled artist, guys. And that’s the easiest fucking part of making a racing game.

If you keep destroying game developers in reviews while being well aware of those facts, you’re a mean idiot and a liar to your readers. You participate into creating a culture that thinks that things are simple and easy on computers. You enable and vouch for stupidity.

Worse, with this article some game developers are saying thank you, I shit you not! Yes thank you game journalist for being a dumb ass dick for years, it really helped all of us. Fuck me.

2/ You game journalists are passionate enough about the medium to totally forget how it operates. Which makes subtlety impossible in your critics: if it’s technically perfect it’s fine for you while you don’t really connect to what extent it is, it’s fine. How can you have recognition of a medium when its media are unaware of why shooters are cool programmatically speaking because we can debug that gameplay easily (has the target gone down? No? Debug) compared to heavy simulation a la Sims where you don’t know what the hell the computer or the player are going to do and there are dozens of variables at play. Tons of shit happening in games are happening for a technical reason. We’re dependent, we’re working around tech to create gameplay.

With your ignorance you foster a profound lack of knowledge within your audience. The amount of horseshit or entitlement I read from gamers, it’s mind blowing. As if people were like “I saw the boom in this movie shot, 2/10 will not watch again”. You game journalists nurtured that bullshit. You participated into creating a world where 2D games are inherently not as good as 3D games. It’s sad.

Passion isn’t about clearing 100% of all Nintendo games or playing the most obscure and obtuse shit around, it’s about understanding processes, the craft, the tools so that you can judge accordingly the collaborative work of developers and teach your readers about the most complicated medium in the world, enjoying it more and more importantly, make it progress.

This article should have come up in 2000 if not 1995. In 2015, it’s a disgrace.

One post this month damn, that’s not a lot. I did write but didn’t post. Going back and forth between hard work days and days off where I catch up with everything.

It’s weird to be disconnected for days from what’s going on and then go online, freak out and then just freak out, speechless. You want to comment on everything but nothing matters with this endless stream.

There are so many things going wrong, small to huge it’s ridiculous. It feels like what’s going OK is just to hide the horrendous background behind.

Clearly, my life has changed since having black kids around me, since last year. Before if I was thinking about a baby I would automatically see him white. Now I see 2, one black and one white. I’ve basically never hold a black baby, never hold a mini-me, isn’t that effed up?

Making one sounds good in some way I am the root, the start. It definitely makes me smile to think about a big tree with grand-grand-grand-sons and daughters looking back at that French ancestor coming from nowhere. Child, you have grass fed cow milk in your blood and it’s coming from France’s center. 18-58 represent!

But yeah, it just sounds so selfish to me. I think about my teeth DNA, you don’t want that son. I had to wear every single mouth tool available for a decade to make it right. I can’t just be like “well, he’ll be lucky as I have been!” that’s not going to happen in a tighter and tighter world.

I would need so much margin, room, to conceive you and take care of you baby girl I’m not in that ballpark yet. If ever, that’s the bad thing.

Or not, I am so free. Facebook reminds it to me all the time. Meanwhile the window is slowly closing for me. Oh well.

So yeah the Hololens. Neat. I can see some cool games and apps (architecture hell yeah).

However I think people are not that ready or excited because we’re far behind what technology is capable of.

See it this way: if you haven’t moved from where you live for the past ten years and use a computer on a desktop, wired or wireless internet didn’t change your life. Traveling made you aware of wifi’s badassery. Skype is old as fuck but if you’re not using it to communicate with people very far away regularly, you still don’t see how big of a deal it is. And so forth.

So VR, AR “wearables” haptic feedback and all are out of our reality for like, years. I still don’t have a tablet and don’t feel like missing much years after the first one came out. I was waiting for 20 or 24” tablets –audio design on this? fuck yeah- but they’re not coming because you make more money selling loads of smaller screens, I always forget about profit rules (rule #3: fuck people’s needs).

I think there’s another problem: the experience, which barely changes. You can listen to music on your $700 phone with a $10/month subscription and fundamentally, it’s not different from my $20 USB key and my FLAC files. Firefox support the Oculus Rift but you’re still reading pages of text. The biggest change so far has been mobility and we already have it.

There’s also this fatigue. People are already hooked on tech, know it’s bad and now you want deeper connections? Add the NSA and that’s enough for people to chill and play a platform game. In 2D. With a gamepad. On a TV. Offline.

I’m impressed by scale. Scale is an important concept because it’s easy to see 4 (2 power of 2) but way less to see 65536 (2 power 16).

Here’s a stupid example that shows how complex things can be:

So for some computers running Windows 8.1 or above, when you crank up the volume you get that annoying popup.

Damn it Microsoft, it’s all your fault and you suck and you’re the worst oh god why?

Where does that message come from? Well Reddit answered and a MS engineer confirmed that there’s no code in Windows that displays that popup.

This popup is a European Union requirement that manufacturers are free to implement or not at the audio driver level. So Samsung thought it would be cool to implement that on my laptop.

It’s not much of a deal –it’s loud enough before the popup shows up 90% of the time- but what’s interesting to me is that at the scale Windows and Microsoft work, there are tons of shit we don’t know about, things that as users we think are all about Redmond getting their shit together but it’s not. It’s WAY more complex there’s even countries chiming in.

Right there we have MS, computer manufacturer, audio driver maker, EU battling over the sound volume experience in an OS.

The time passes pleasantly, maybe even thrillingly at times, but it means nothing, there’s no sense of achievement other than Achievements. Maybe it’s more compulsive masturbation than Disneyland (or maybe Disneyland is masturbation? Discuss) – make the itch go away, risk a faint sense of guilt and self-disgust afterwards, then do it again anyway.

I’m perfectly happy for these things to exist, and even to spend some time with them myself, but I worry a) that this model is taking over, that the hollowness of Farmville is creeping into games on an intrinsic level and b) that I’m too lazy to resist playing them. I don’t want to miss out, and once I start playing I struggle to stop until most of those icons go away, because some reptile voice at the back of my skull tells me that cleaning up the map is essential to my wellbeing. That’s not what I want for myself.

Me neither and that’s why I block that reptile voice and don’t even start playing those games. As a commenter rightly says:

Unfortunately (?), that means I’m drifting away from mainstream gaming (and mainstream gaming culture) more and more with every passing month. I’m starting to look at itch.io with more interest than I look at Steam. Not that I don’t find some great gaming experiences anymore, among more “traditional” games. Transistor and The Talos Principle are wonderful, and Dreamfall Chapters is a thing. (just 3 games of 2014, off the top of my head) But they’re handpicked and unique games in a sea that mostly looks… uninteresting and unappealing, when not downright manipulative (Skinner Boxes, achievements, bars to fill, collectibles to find) and dedicated to the pursuit of escapism beyond repair. (Hollow is a good word for it)

Gaming is the only environment in which “addictive” is used as a positive term.

I’ve only played and finished KRZ last year and it was a really great experience.

We need so much more distinct look and feel to existent game designs and we need more risks taken but the vibe right now between political correctness, me-too behavior and development costs is not saying “it’s happening” at a large scale, sadly.

Hello 2015. Damn, not a week in. The NAACP bombing was gross but that Charlie Hebdo tragedy touches home for me.

They were a big symbol across all media, for over four decades of freedom of speech in France. I would take the train and look at the newspaper stand and quickly read the front page like millions of people in Paris probably. It didn’t matter if it was brilliant or corny as hell, we all smiled or giggled before getting in the tube. We all took that freedom of speech for granted. We got warnings but we’re so complacent about how we’re soft with everything, even fundamentals.

What trigger? A generation imploding under heavy unemployment with no upward social mobility: when people are not happy, even smart they become stupid. Religions scoop them all. Second, 9/11. Since then and the monumental hammered in message that it’s “us against them” -I guess Christians VS Muslims kind of vibe?- it’s utterly fucked up.

I see all kinds of messages. France needs more guns. France needs less Muslims. France needs to stand for freedom of speech.

I think France and obviously other nations need less religion. Separation of the State and the Church remember? It’s like we forgot. But as vital, we need to redefine how we get people together economically and how to redistribute our vast wealth. It’s just, it needs to happen.

And dear obnoxious media, you need to stop with “cool pope” and “Islamic terrorists” it’s not a sports game with teams. Fuck.

Last year has probably been the most challenging ever for most people working and living in the game development world. I mean hell, it’s been awful and I’m trying to see what’s the deal. Let’s go back.

Games on computers have been a boy’s club for the first three decades of their existence (70s 80s and 90s). Boys, not adults.

Then 2000 happened. For the first time of the existence of games and consoles it was hype, cool to be in your mid twenties and play games like GTA after work.

Then things got faster. By 2004 games were really entering mainstream with Popcap killing it in the PC downloadable business with their puzzle games for moms. WoW reaching out like crazy. The Nintendo DS. The Wii at the corner of 06-07.

In 2004 ten years ago I felt that game culture was maturing and finally showing to the world its tremendous power. But a major crowd –commercially speaking- was still a boy’s club.

Boy’s club means sexism in some form. It’s not tied to games, it’s everywhere like that. White boy’s club adds racism.

And we in the industry we fed them with everything they wanted, guns titties no diversity you name it. Those guys have enormous pockets and buy tons of games game developers have been making billions thanks to that crowd.

I thought that game design would change, cater to more different people but production costs rising exponentially meant that we had to make money instead of making the medium progress, smarter.

Don’t get me wrong for the past ten years the medium progressed and tons of interesting and different games that I couldn’t have thought being possible have been made but game culture still relies on the Original Gangsta game culture: the boy’s club. The videogame boy’s club, hardcore games and questionable aesthetics.

Like a fan of a band always prefers their first album, a lot of people in games players or developers value that OG side, we grew up with this! But that’s where I didn’t stick with it. It’s the past to me. I want something else badly.

Nintendo tried to avoid that crowd after the Wii, thinking that the market was big enough. They at first presented the Wii U as just an evolution of the Wii but sales made them quickly go back to cater to the boy’s club: big guns, pads with 4562467 buttons etc. Those guys have money. However Nintendo knows they nail the kid department so the boy’s club is just additional revenue. The blue ocean is a mirage, it’s more like millions of swimming pools and the boy’s club one is still the biggest and most reliable revenue-wise. Publishers have issues though.

I look at Watch Dogs by Ubisoft, 28 weeks to pull 3.4M units sold. That is bad. In 2010 they would reach that amount in 7 weeks. And it’s their only game in the top 20. By comparison Pokemon for 3DS, 3 weeks in the charts 5M units sold. That’s what all AAA publishers want and basically outside two publishers and two games (GTA and CoD), no one is making that kind of money with the boy’s club anymore. There are too many games out there and gamedev costs are insane in the brain. 20 gigs first day patches are the result of extremely complex game development scenarios.

From the programmer to the player everybody is like “fuck this”. We truly reached a point.

I think it’s going to give tons of people some room to redefine game culture and game business for real this time. I hope.